


Crushing Blow

by evilwriter37



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [9]
Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, F/F, Head Injury, Heather!whump, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Memory Loss, Whump, concussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: Heather took a hit to the head during a battle, and now the only thing she remembers is her name.
Relationships: Heather/Astrid Hofferson
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134545
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	Crushing Blow

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Who are you?"

The left side of Heather’s head hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before. She groaned, rolled onto her side.

“I think she’s waking up,” a quiet, unfamiliar voice said. Confused, Heather peeked open one eye, then both, rolling onto her back again.

She was in a house, it seemed, and there was a blonde woman peering over her, as well as an auburn-haired man. The blonde woman was beautiful, with sparkling blue eyes. 

“Who are you?” she asked, completely unclear of that, or where she was. Gods, why did her head hurt so much?! She tried digging in her memory, but found nothing to explain her headache. Really, there wasn’t much there. She might as well have woken up with a clean slate. 

The man and the woman looked at each other, then back at her.

“You don’t… know?” the woman asked tentatively. 

Heather was going to shake her head, but thought better of it. “No.”

The man and the woman looked at each other again.

“I’ll go get Fishlegs,” the man said. “He’ll know what’s up.”

Who or what was Fishlegs? What kind of name was that? 

“That’s a good idea,” the woman said. 

And then the man was leaving the house. Heather was alone with the woman, but she didn’t feel frightened. It was like she knew her from somewhere, but couldn’t recall exactly where. 

The woman sat on the edge of the bed. “So you really don’t remember?”

“What am I supposed to remember?”

There was a look of hurt on the woman’s face. Had Heather done that? Though, it quickly dissipated.

“Do you know your name?”

“Heather.”

“Anything else?”

“Not… really.” Heather tried digging around in her mind some more, but oh, that made her head hurt. She moaned, closed her eyes. The woman did not move from her bedside.

She opened her eyes again when the man returned, and he had someone else with him, a big, blond man that had a gentle demeanor about him. 

“Heather, thank Thor you’re awake!” the blond man cried.

So… they knew her, but she didn’t know them. Odd. 

“I’m gonna do some tests, okay?” the blond man asked. “They won’t hurt. I promise.”

“O-okay.”

“Do you know the names of anyone here?” 

“No.”

“Do you recall the names of anyone at all? Anyone not in this room?”

A name flitted across her mind, so suddenly that it shocked her.

“Dagur,” Heather answered. “I-I don’t know who that is though.”

“That’s alright, that’s alright,” the blond man told her. He put a hand to his chest. “I’m Fishlegs.” He gestured to the woman. “This is Astrid.” Then to the other man. “And that’s Hiccup.”

“Why are your names so weird?” Heather asked. “Well, except for Astrid.” 

“We’ll get to that,” Fishlegs said. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Um…” She tried thinking. She knew what days were, could recall that dates were numbered and that there were different names for days of the week. However, she didn’t know what day it was. “No.”

“It’s Tyr’s Day,” Fishlegs let her know. There was an increasingly worried expression growing on his face. He went on with the tests though. “Now, take the index finger of your right hand and put it to your nose.” 

Heather did that. Or, she tried to do that. She missed and touched her cheek. 

“Try again,” Fishlegs said gently.

So, Heather tried. After much difficulty and poking around at her face, she managed to touch her nose. Fishlegs and Hiccup looked between each other for a moment, as if having a silent conversation. 

“Do you think you can get out of bed?” Fishlegs asked. “There’s one more test.”

Heather pushed herself up onto her elbows. “My head hurts, but I can try.”

“Fishlegs, don’t make her do too much too soon,” Astrid said protectively. “She just woke up.”

“No, it’s okay,” Heather told Astrid. “I can do it.”

Despite that, Astrid helped her sit up and then stand. She was wobbly on her feet, dizziness taking ahold of her.

“Okay,” Fishlegs said. “Now, try walking in a straight line, heel-to-toe.”

That seemed easy enough, but finding her own nose should have been easy too, right? Letting go of Astrid, Heather began walking heel-to-toe. She wobbled, and Astrid kept pace with her. Okay, that  _ seemed  _ to be a straight line.

And then she fell. Astrid caught her before she could completely hit the floor, and Heather went almost boneless in her arms, the dizziness getting worse. It felt like her whole world was spinning. 

“Okay, okay, back in bed,” Fishlegs said. “I can give you something for the pain. It’ll make you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Heather argued as Astrid carefully brought her back to the bed. It felt like a relief to lay back down. Her head wasn’t spinning as much. “I want to know what’s going on and why I can’t remember anything.”

“Heather, you need sleep,” Hiccup said gently. “You can’t even walk in a straight line.”

Oh, so she’d messed that one up too? That frustrated her a great deal. She wanted to know what was going on, why her head was hurting so much, and why she couldn’t even walk in a straight line! 

“Why?” she asked.

“It’s the head injury,” Fishlegs said. “You have a really bad concussion, it would seem. And sleep is the best answer for those.”

“Oh.”

Astrid patted Heather’s hand. “We can tell you more next time you’re awake, okay?”

“But I want to know  _ now. _ ” The longer she stayed awake, the worse her head hurt, but she wanted this information. 

Everyone looked at each other, having a silent conversation with just their glances. Then:

“Alright,” Fishlegs said. “We’ll tell you everything.”

  
  


Heather’s headache made her want to scream, so she gratefully downed the potion that Fishlegs gave her. She didn’t know how long they’d talked for, couldn’t keep track of time.

But she had a better grasp on reality now, was beginning to remember a little of it. Fishlegs said her memory would slowly come back in pieces. One piece had returned when they’d brought in the Razorwhip,  _ her  _ Razorwhip. Windshear had been terribly happy to see her, and Heather hadn’t needed anyone to tell her her name. She knew because this was her dragon, the dragon that she’d raised since she was young and alone in the woods. Heather remembered those days now, of caring for the dragon, of living off the wilderness, of being afraid… but what had she been afraid of? It was no matter. Fishlegs had said it would all return in due time. 

She’d been in battle, apparently, and she’d taken a crushing blow from a hammer. She was lucky she had survived. And she’d been in battle with Dragon Hunters. That sounded about right. Heather would despise anyone who would hurt and hunt dragons. 

And these people were her friends. Though, maybe Astrid was more than a friend. It was in her eyes, in the way she stayed close to her and held her hand. Heather was alright with that. It comforted her knowing that she had people she was close to. 

She wanted to talk more, but her head injury was saying otherwise. For now, she would sleep, knowing that her dragon and her friends were watching over her.


End file.
